Quotes as Signposts

Two Cups of Tea at Hope’s Cafe

September 9, 2020, in an early post on this blog, I wrote about journaling, noting the many journals I have kept over the years.  Occasionally I review some of the older ones, reminding myself where my journey has taken me during the course of my life.  In them I often recorded quotes I had found helpful as encouragement or comfort or guidance.  Sometimes I am startled by how powerful those quotes can still feel.

This past week I reread some of the entries from 2005-2006.  America had gone to war in 2003 in Iraq and Afghanistan .  It  dragged on. (Peter, Paul and Mary had it right years before as they sung “When will they ever learn?” but I digress). In 2005, there was a push to elect veterans, folks who had been through war and knew the risk and the cost, also the aftermath.  My husband ran for congress in what we knew would almost certainly be an unsuccessful effort but still seemed worth putting forth the message.  I found my journal full of quotes about that time, as I searched for writings that might somehow help me keep my bearings. 

I share a few:

“I shall take my voice wherever there are those who want to hear the melody of freedom or the the words that might inspire hope and courage in the face of despair and fear.  My weapons are peaceful, for it is only by peace that peace can be attained.  The song of freedom must prevail.”—Paul Robison

“My heart is moved by all I cannot save.  So much has been destroyed.  I have to cast my lot with those whom, age, after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.”—Adrienne Rich

This one broke my heart:  “I didn’t want a monument, not even one as sober as that vast black wall of broken lives.* I didn’t want a postage stamp.  I didn’t want a road beside the Delaware River with a sign proclaiming: Vietnam Veterans Memorial Highway. 

“What I wanted was a simple recognition of the limits of our power as a nation to inflict our will on others.  What I wanted was an understanding that the world is neither black and white nor ours.”—anonynous

I wrote my own angst as well, earlier though, at the beginning of the war.

Just a Question

              (A Just Question)

When the coffers are empty

And the coffins are full;

When the world is littered

With war’s putrid aftermath;

When the pale, ghostly hush falls;

Will we hear the echoes

Of those voices who decried

This insanity?

                             —-composed  March 18,2003 by Kathleen Emerson Stulce

   I often return to the words of Clarissa Pinkola Estes: “Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach… One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire.”

And: “”In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. Do not make yourself ill with overwhelm. There is a tendency to fall into being weakened by perseverating on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails.” ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Or:  As Dalton Roberts, a local politician, author, singer, once offered a more succinct quote in his weekly column:  “I do that which is before me to do.  I embrace the present moment.  I embrace God.  And I embrace peace.”

Let us do that which is before us to do, my friends….let us seek to be present to one another…and to seek Goodness by whatever name…and peace.

The invitation is open to share two cups of tea anytime at Hope’s Café or anywhere you share companionship and conversation.

May we be bearers of hope, the “wait staff” at Hope’s Café, for each other and all those we encounter.  Shalom, Kate

*The Vietnam Veterans’ Wall located in Washington, D.C.